This invention relates to telephony, and in particular to a voice conferencing bridge for use in a telephone system.
There have been considerable efforts in the past to develop an easy to use and install conferencing system that enables businesses to implement conferencing of parties both within their operations and outside of their operations. Some examples of conferencing networks are contained in U.S. Pat. No. 4,267,593 which is directed to a digital conferencing arrangement for use in a digital telecommunications switching system and in U.S. Pat. No. 4,661,949 which is directed to a circuit for conference telephony using a conventional system for transmission of voice data. In U.S. Pat. No. 4,267,593 a conventional hybristation is materialized by using at least two buffer memory circuits, one each provided for each of the frames and adapted to be switched to each other, one for input and the other for output, enabling one of the buffer memory circuits to memorize voice data transmitted thereto and, in the meantime permitting the voice data of the preceding frame memorized in the other buffer memory circuit to be read out, converting the voice data read out into an analog signal, and then synthesizing the analog signal. U.S. Pat. No. 4,652,700 is yet another embodiment of a conferencing network.